The Faith of Taking Good Care of Ancestors is the Best Way to Reach God

If your husband is a foreigner, you had best hold a memorial service for your ancestors with the use of your husband’s family name, even if the country from which your husband comes is where the system of husband and wife retaining separate family names is taken for granted. This is the best way for a Japanese woman married to a foreigner to mix with his family. You would come to be a special member of the family because you’re accepted by his ancestral spirits.

had best〜 〜するのが一番よい

retain 保持する

take A for granted Aを当たり前と思う

married 結婚している

ancestral 先祖の

As you get older, you will come to think of your death and what your family will be like after you die. If you know while you’re alive that your families are likely to hold memorial services for you after you die and won’t forget about you, you must be glad and feel reassured. You would be prepared to leave this world when you face death.

be likely to~ 〜しそうである

feel assured 安心する

be prepared to~ 〜する準備ができている

In Europe and America, most people are Christians and they hardly hold memorial services to console their ancestral spirits. While they’re young, such a faith may have no problem, but when they begin to think about death, they are not likely to feel God even after they believed in Christianity for their whole lives. Most of them seem to feel like “Am I really going to the Kingdom of God after I die? My children will keep on believing in Christianity just like me. I committed sins. They might forget about me. Am I supposed to just disappear?”

Christian キリスト教徒

console 慰める

the Kingdom of God 神の国

sin 罪

be supposed to~ 〜することになっている

The faith of taking good care of ancestors is the best way to reach God. By holding memorial services for the spiritual line of your family, you can trace it back spiritually safely and reach, beyond your ancestors, God. Human beings are apt to seek for something strong, something effective, that is, God. But suppose that you were God. Would you feel like helping people who have left their families and ancestors behind without paying any attention to them and curry favor with you?

trace A back Aを遡る

be apt to~ 〜しがちである

seek for A Aを探し求める

suppose 考えてみる

curry favor 擦寄る

Selfish people seeking for a short cut will end up worshiping spiritual beings with greed just like you or ones that eat human souls. Such people, ironically, will come to be attracted to such evil spirits just as “Like attracts like.” If you try to help people who need help, on the other hand, holy spirits will come close to you to give you a hand without asking. True God is fair and square.